Obligatory Melancholy Post

Many of my friends share some familiarity with a story to which I now allude. A particular person, with whom I have long been acquainted, once received a good deal of affectionate attention from me despite frustrations of distance and timing. Mind you, I never intended to address such a memory, but a parcel I recently opened prompted me. Following the escapades of my summer spent counseling at Duke University, I wrote to her very frequently. During much of that time, she was out of the country and it takes quite a while for international mail to be "returned to sender," so to speak. In the aforementioned parcel, I found a collection of short letters I wrote to her as well as a three volume compilation. In reference to a late night watching and humorously analyzing George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, as well as a number of subsequent jests, I titled the collection Zombie Slumber Part Massacre. I now bring you the complete playlist of ZSPM. I might add that this includes a rather vast range of my tastes, but generally, I still enjoy turning my attention back to these tunes.

ZSPM I: Gratuitous Sex Scene
1. Drink to me Babe Then by AC Newman
2. Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind
3. Summerbaby by Polaris
4. Nocturna by Glovertango
5. Gamble Everything for Love by Ben Lee
6. Silence Teaches You How to Sing by Underwater Sleeping Society
7. Girl by Beck
8. Hospital Rooms Aren't for Lovers by Bear Colony
9. I'm Still in Love With You by Al Green
10. Red Letter Day by the Get Up Kids
11. Me on Your Front Porch by Criteria
12. All is Full of Love by Bjork
13. Easy to be Around by Diane Cluck
14. Feed of Clay by Vashti Bunyan
15. Kissing my Love by Bill Withers
16. Reno Dakota by the Magnetic Fields
17. The Leanover by Life Without Buildings
18. Memphis & 53rd by Minus the Bear
19. Playgirl by Ladytron
20. Peach, Plum, Pear by Joanna Newsom
21. Walking Out of Stride by Badly Drawn Boy
22. Here Comes My Baby by Cat Stevens

[Note: This is an unusual note for me to end on in a compilation, but that is because the three mixes are intended to be played continuously. So, for my own sort of rules, consider this an intermission, not the end of an playlist.]

ZSPM II: Absurdly Gory Death
1. Shadow Stabbing by Cake
2. My Beloved Monster by the Eels
3. The World's Gone Mad by Handsome Boy Modeling School
4. Who Could Win a Rabbit by Animal Collective
5. Hollow You by Antelope
6. Undone (the Sweater Song) by Weezer
7. Geeky Pop Song by the Capricorns
8. Staring at the Sun by TV on the Radio
9. Stretch (You are all Right) by Tortoise
10. Dracula From Houston by the Butthole Surfers
11. Don't Be Shallow by Sondre Lerche
12. Eugene, Oregon (Manifest Destiny) by Jayber Crow
13. The High Snow by Brazz Tree
14. Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches
15. After Dark by Le Tigre
16. No Rain by Blind Melon
17. Vampires by Fastball
18. The Freshman by The Verve Pipe
19. Mary Jane's Last Dance by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
20. Jack the Ripper by Colin Meloy

ZSPM III: Sweet Revenge
1. Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz
2. Hey Jealousy by Gin Blossoms
3. The Old Apartment by Barenaked Ladies
4. I Threw it All Away by Yo La Tengo
5. A Long December by Counting Crows
6. Angel Won't You Call Me by the Decemberists
7. See Saw by the Weeds
8. Teen Titans Theme by Puffy AmiYumi
9. Where Does the Good Go? by Tegan and Sara
10. Begin Again by Ellis
11. Not Quite Paradise by Bliss 66
12. Astronomy (8th Light) by Black Star
13. Hide Me From Next February by Les Savy Fav
14. Fearless Vampire Killers by Bad Brains
15. In the Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step Out of the Way of a Charging Bull by Don Caballero
16. Mastermind by Deltron
17. A Boy Like Me by Patrick Wolf
18. It's My Turn to Fly by the Urge
19. Moondance by Van Morrison
20. The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
21. In Spite of All the Damage by the Be Good Tanyas
22. Eyes by Rogue Wave

[Note: If I recall accurately, the jarring nature of this final volume was intentional, though I would not regret putting some of these more kitschy songs on a playlist--especially closing with them--I cannot deny that I still have a soft spot for most of these songs. Also, if she ever happens upon this weblog and this post, the influence of Miss Dana Reinoos's mix, Like A Walk in the Park, she gave me is obvious. Generally, I am hesitant to use songs from others' mixes on my own, but her mix is of such quality and my love of those songs was so great, that I couldn't resist. Most notably are See Saw by the Weeds and Geeky Pop Song by the Capricorns.]

I cannot say exactly what I mean to accomplish in writing this. The person for whom I compiled these mixes is pretty thoroughly out of my life. Such is not the case for which I had hoped. Still, she means a good deal to me in the face of the consternation she has caused me. For a while, she was more to me that I could have hoped, and far more than she wanted; at least more than she wanted when we were not around one another. To yearn for a space in someone's life, to aspire for just some pocket of time in the proximity of someone you care about, and then to be denied that by a method of absence, silence, and refusal... It leaves one with such a dastardly unended sentence, nagging at you until you put it away somewhere without realizing it. I have kept it in envelopes, in folders, tied up behind the surfaces of the gifts she gave me that lay still in my closet.

Eventually, I come around to laughing at my own worn out tales. The telling, retelling, forgetting, and re-discovery of my own memories fiddles them down into the nearest thing to nothing. They do not vanish; you cannot burn up or throwaway a memory. Rather, I find in an old envelope, in the lyrics of a once familiar song, the knot, the stone, the unredeemed bone of a person, a time, our places together, seasoned with the pressure of our contact; and then I smile, perhaps chuckle, and slip it away again.